Article on BRB's latest project which fuses South Asian dance into the repertoire. From The Times.

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NOBODY knows the exact origins of kathak dance. Nurtured in the Hindu temples and village squares of northern India, it was performed by an itinerant community of storytellers. Their subjects were epic mythological and moral tales, usually with a devotional slant.

Seven gods are honoured in Birmingham Royal Ballet's first programme of the new season, but even the combined goodwill of Apollo, Krishna and a raft of Egyptian deities cannot turn choreographic turnips into lotuses. Apollo is humbly excepted, of course, since the evening opens with George Balanchine's 1928 masterpiece to Stravinsky, created when he was a mere 24.

BIRMINGHAM Royal Ballet has opened its autumn season with two company premieres and one world premiere, all on a single night. Whatever the success of these three ballets (and that success is distinctly mixed), at least David Bintley, BRB’s director, is keeping the creative spirit alive for his dancers.

Birmingham Royal Ballet's triple bill The Immortals covers as many cultural bases as you could reasonably expect. George Balanchine's Apollo (1928) views ancient Greece through the playful lens of European modernism; David Bintley's The Sons of Horus (1985) travels back to the funeral rites of ancient Egypt, while Nahid Siddiqui's new work tells the story of Krishna in a stylistic dialogue between Kathak and classical ballet. Disappointingly, though, this postmodern cosmos is rarely visited by a divine spark.

David Bintley has packaged Birmingham Royal Ballet's opening season with a godly theme - The Immortals. Deities in the triple bill include Apollo, Isis and Krishna, in ballets by Balanchine, Bintley and Nahid Siddiqui. Now that Birmingham has become a temple of consumerism, its fabulous new Bull Ring shopping centre spawning yet more glassy malls, BRB is offering a spiritual dimension to its entertainment.

The Immortals, Hippodrome, Birmingham By Zoe Anderson for The Independent

Krishna is one of the great subjects of dance. So many classical Indian forms tell stories of this god. His loves, his majesty and tenderness are celebrated in a huge range of styles. Birmingham Royal Ballet's new Krishna, by the dancer and choreographer Nahid Siddiqui, borrows Kathak traditions for a ballet.

It's a remarkable idea, not least in its clash of styles. Most of Kathak technique is the opposite of ballet's. Energy travels downwards, through bending knees into percussive feet. There may be jumps, but there's nothing to compare to ballet's urge to be airborne.

David Dougill sees an uneven mix of new blood in Scotland, old gods in Birmingham

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Following last Christmas’s cosy performances of The Snowman, Scottish Ballet quitted the stage for a complete revamp. The company (created in 1969), which enjoyed a high and individual profile under its genius of a founder-choreographer, the late Peter Darrell, lost impetus over the past decade — increasingly sidelined on the British dance scene

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